Speaking of Vision

Text: Acts 2:1-21 May 27, 2007

Where are we going? What are we going to do?

Just because our lives are full of uncertainty does not mean we like to be adrift, like dust particles in the sun. We do not want to be aimless. Without something to point at, without a direction. We do not want to wake up years from now and wonder how we ever got here, this spot in life that we never imagined.

We do want to imagine it, our future. Partly that is because we are not very fond of the unexpected (thinking usually that “unexpected” means “in trouble”). But also that is because we know that imagining the future has a lot to do with the way the future unfolds. We are smart and faithful enough to know that picking a destination will not necessarily get us to that destination (or even one nearby), but it will at least tell us how to start out from where we are now.

That is what prophets do. Prophets in the Bible. They create visions, in the modern corporate sense. Mission statements, sort of. A prophet’s job is to use words powerfully to inspire our imaginations, to feed our imagining. A prophet first tells us what is happening at the moment. These things are going great, these things not so great. They are professional clear thinkers. They wonder: how does God look at this state of affairs. God helps them to do this. And taking into account of what is, a prophet then tells us what might be. And having created such a vision, the prophet gives it to us to consider, to focus on, to ponder and discuss and agree or not. What the prophet does is state the problem, which then moves us to act.

A vision of the future is not a blueprint. It is not a plan. When we talk about visionaries—say in business like the founders of Google, or in service, like Paul Farmer who builds health clinics in the most destitute places in the world—we imagine that their vision was clear and specific. But that’s in hindsight. Visions of the future are like sketches, grand and indefinite overall, sharp and clear in places, fuzzy in others, with not all things thought out. A vision is like a map of a territory still unknown. We kind of know where we think we are going and what we hope we’ll find there, but these are uncharted lands and, since the destination is a proposal, not a place, we might arrive at a different spot altogether.

The disciples had gathered in Jerusalem. Up until now, Jesus has been their prophet, among many other things. But now Jesus has ascended in a cloud, leaving them here on earth, in this city. Leaving them to wonder: what now? Where are we going? What are we going to do?

Jesus has left them here on earth, but he had not left them here alone. He promised them just a few days ago that the Holy Spirit would guide them, and sure enough, the Holy Spirit comes to them in something like flames and something like a wind.

The Holy Spirit is good for this kind of job. The Holy Spirit is like a prophet more than like a planner. The Holy Spirit is not mostly a problem-solver. The Spirit is God who like the wind. No one knows where it comes from or where it goes. The realm of the Spirit is not MapQuest. The signs of the Spirit are things that are uncontained. Water, and wind, and fire. Things of movement and un-bounded. It is the Spirit of God who draws creation into being, blowing over the waters in Genesis chapter 1. Full of life and open possibility.

Pentecost, so named because it was the 50th day after Passover, was a harvest feast. The feast more importantly marks the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. It is a celebration because God gives the Israelites a direction. The law is a kind of vision. It is a vision of a world in which people are aligned with God, and therefore by definition a world that is good and without suffering. The law reinforces the hopes of creation.

The events at Pentecost renew that vision in a different time and under different conditions.

By the time of Jesus, Jerusalem was a cosmopolitan city, a center of commerce, political power, and intellect. It drew many people of many cultures from the ends of the earth, at least the ends as they knew it. People from as far away as Mesopotamia (what we now call Iraq, Iran, and Syria); Parthia (or Afghanistan, Kuwait, parts of Saudi Arabia); northeast Africa including Egypt; Turkey, southern Europe, and Rome. If you could sit in a park in Jerusalem in those days, you’d hear almost as many languages as there were people. Much as if you sat in Sennott Park across the street here in Cambridge this Sunday afternoon.

Powered by the Holy Spirit, the disciples speak to the many who are gathered, speaking politely and necessarily in other tongues, as it says, so that those many kinds of people might hear in their own languages. As clearly spoken—or rather as clearly understood—as if the disciples were speaking in each listener’s native tongue. Speaking to others so that they might understand is part of the vision of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

And the other part is that many people might become prophets. Quoting the book of Joel, Peter says that the time has come for women and men, young and old, powerful and powerless—all to be prophets. And do what prophets do: name the present and name the future. And that means us, too—spiritual descendants of that crowd in Jerusalem. It is up to us to think clearly about what is going on and to create a vision for what might be. In our own lives, in the world, and in the church. And, as prophets do, ponder the question: what does God think of all this?

This story in Acts has been called the story of the birth of the church. But it is not the church which comes to life here. There have already been gatherings and planning meetings and a Council and a commitment to stay together. They had new members. What was born in Jerusalem that day was the church’s mission. The Spirit plays midwife, but not to the church. What the Spirit brings is not fellowship, but a vision.

What is our vision now, here at Faith church in Cambridge? You are prophets. What do you name here? What is happening here now? What might be? There are no other people in this world who can say. Just you and our brothers and sisters here.

Listen! Says Peter to the crowd. The word he uses means “let me put words into your ears.” In the story of Pentecost, many speak up and many listen. As it was in the earliest church, it is a time of change here. It is important that we take our role as prophets seriously. It is important, as it is from time to time, that we do not forget to replenish our dreams. It is time for us to put words into each other’s ears. Time to imagine our future. To wonder: what does God think of all this? To call on the Holy Spirit, uncontained power of life and possibility. To wonder: what shall we do? Where are we going?

Succession Ascension

Text: Acts 1:1-11 May 20, 2007

Welcome to Part 2 of “Jesus and His Ministry,” brought to you by Luke the Evangelist. In the last episode, we saw Jesus returning to the disciples after his tragic execution. He spent forty days with them, showing that he had been raised from the dead, talking to them, eating with them, reminding them that it was he who had gathered them, and giving them each a new commission and a new title: Apostle.

Thus begins, more or less, the book of Acts, the second part of a two-volume saga written by Luke about Jesus and his ministry on earth, volume one being Luke’s Gospel itself. Acts opens with this recap of Jesus’ actions after his resurrection. But it really assumes that you already know the story of the life of Jesus, that you’ve seen the earlier episodes of this show and are familiar with the characters and what Jesus did and said. But whereas for the other Gospel writers, the story is over, for Luke it is about to enter a whole new season. In the episodes ahead we’ll hear about the life of early Christians and the early church. But it is the same show, Jesus and His Ministry.

In the other three Gospels—Mark, Matthew, and John—there is no ascension event, and the end of the story of the life of Jesus is pretty much the end of the story. But if the story had ended there it would be unlikely that we would be sitting here. The disciples did not just disperse and go about their pre-Jesus business. Instead, they became apostles, speaking and acting as a result of their experience with Jesus, and bringing that experience into the lives of others who did not know Jesus face to face. And eventually into our lives.

The ascension of Jesus is like the hinge in Luke’s rendition of the story of Jesus and his followers. It appears in brief mention in the last verses of Luke (which we just heard) and slightly more fully in the first chapter of Acts. That’s because, though it marks the end of Jesus physical presence on the earth (which is the subject of the Gospel of Luke), it marks even more the beginning of the ministry of Jesus through the church (which is the subject of the book of Acts). The question that Acts addresses is: will the new age that Jesus proclaimed be able to continue now that Jesus is not the physically present charismatic and divine leader of his disciples?

It is a question of succession that all founding leaders face. When they are gone, will the enterprise flourish? The ascension of Jesus is not the first succession/ascension story in the Bible. There are two precedents: Moses and Elijah. Moses, the prophet-like-which-there-was-no-other, who led the people of Israel out of slavery, was by traditional stories carried up to heaven, and his lieutenant Joshua became Israel’s leader. Elijah, the great prophet, ascended in a whirlwind to heaven, and his associate and student Elisha took over his job. It was Moses and Elijah who stood with Jesus on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured. The three of them spoke together. Maybe they were discussing strategy. Some readers think that the two men dressed in white who speak to the disciples after Jesus ascends in a cloud are meant to be Moses and Elijah.

All these ascension stories are about the transfer of power. Moses to Joshua. Elijah to Elisha. Jesus to … ? Jesus to whom? Jesus not to another prophet nor to Peter, his buddy on whom the church will stand. In one sense, Jesus transfers his power to the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit’s job here is different from Joshua and Elisha. The Spirit empowers the disciples and guides them. You will be baptized by the Spirit, Jesus says. (Which baptism we’ll hear about next week at Pentecost.) You will receive a power from the Holy Spirit, he says. Jesus transfers his prophetic power to the church, his gathered followers. You.

This shift of power marks a difference in tone and action between the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. In the Gospels, the followers of Jesus are like vessels into which the words of Jesus and their experiences of Jesus are poured, filling them with hope and power and possibilities. The followers are called disciples, which means student. They sit at their master’s feet, their lord’s feet, and listen and learn.

But the ascension is graduation day, commencement. And as in all graduations, the students are sent out into the world to take what they have learned and to act on it. They become apostles, a word which means one who is sent. The focus changes from knowledge to mission. The question changes from Who is Jesus? to What do we do now that we know who Jesus is? In the Gospel, the disciples hear the good news. In Acts, the apostles act.

The questions of Luke and Acts are our questions. Who is Jesus? What do we do in light of knowing Jesus? And they lead to a third question for each of us: Who am I?

Jesus has always seemed to the church to be a complicated divine brother. On the one hand, he comforts us and heals us and is with us in times of need. He teaches us and guides us and we rely on him. This relationship is a kind of personal piety. Jesus is for me and I turn to him. There is a lot of this Jesus in the writings of Paul.

On the other hand, Jesus is a counter-cultural reformer, assertive and challenging. He preaches about changes in the world, in the system, not just in each of us, that promote justice for everyone without regard for privilege. This relationship is demanding of our compassion and courage. Jesus is for the world, and expects much of us, his brothers and sisters. There is a lot of this Jesus in the Gospels and in the book of Acts. The church often has seen this as a conflict and at different times in history one or the other view has prevailed.

But there are not two different persons of Jesus. Or even two sides of the same Jesus that appear different, like in that old story about the blind men and the elephant. We are both comforted and sent. We are freed of fear of death so we can perform with courage dangerous acts of compassion. And when we act on the behalf of others, we find ourselves becoming closer to Jesus and fed by him. As the opening hymn says, “live in the light! … [and] be the light.” We have a relationship with a guy who is both divine and human. Who eats and walks and dies like a human and ascends like a god. A relationship like that is going to be intense.

We are both disciples and apostles. We are listeners and speakers. We are learners and teachers. We are beneficiaries of God’s grace and messengers of it. We cannot only sit at the feet of Jesus, comfortably informed. We cannot only be good worldly citizens, urgently active. As Christians, we belong to both Part 1 and Part 2, to both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.

In both parts, the followers of Jesus gather into groups. We are in this together, as the disciples who became apostles were in it together. We come to church to worship together, to join others in their times of thanksgiving and times of sadness, to be fed and energized. So that we may go out into the world strong and eager.

Peace is not doing nothing

Text: John 14:23-29 May 13, 2006

If we so much want peace, why don’t we have peace?

No one wants war, we say. If no one wants war, why do we constantly go to war? Why have humans warred for at least 4000 years straight?

The sentence really goes like this: “No one wants war, but …” “No one wants war, but we have to do something.” War is doing something. Peace, it seems like, is doing nothing. War is something we engage in. Peace, it seems like, is something we don’t do. When the situation calls for action, or seems to, war answers that call and peace seems not to.

Jesus speaks to his disciples, who are pretty upset and anxious. He’s finally convinced them that his death is inevitable and that they will be left without him. In the passage we just heard, he tries to reassure them. First, God will send the Holy Spirit—also called the Advocate in our Bible, but sometimes called Counselor or Paraclete after its Greek name—the Spirit who will continue to teach and guide them. And second, Jesus gives them a gift of peace. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.

But neither are especially helpful to the disciples. If the disciples thought that Jesus was giving them a cushy assignment, if they thought that they were off the hook, if they thought that the grace of God was something they could observe instead of take part in, if they thought that the peace Jesus was talking about was going to let them retire in fame and fortune—if they thought any of those things, they were going to be disappointed. Because from the time of Jesus’ two gifts to them—the Holy Spirit and the peace of Christ—they had nothing but trouble. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples preached and healed and lectured and worshipped, and by and large were put to death for all that.

Either the gifts Jesus gave were not very good ones, or Jesus meant something altogether different than what they expected.

It is evidently a strange sort of peace, a different sort of peace than they expect. I do not give to you as the world does, Jesus tells them. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid, Jesus tells them. Yet they live in fearsome and troubling times.

When Jesus says Do not be troubled in your hearts, the word he uses means “do not be perplexed.” Do not be confused. Do not be distracted. And when he says Do not be afraid, the word he uses means “do not be timid.” He is not trying to tell them that their hearts should not be moved, or their muscles atrophied.

The peace that Jesus brings does not numb our hearts, minds, or bodies. It does not make unpleasant things pleasant. It is not a drug that transports us to some unearthly place where we lie in a agreeable stupor while the cares of the world wash over us.

The peace that Jesus brings is not an anesthetic. On the contrary, it is a stimulant. It is a wider, more acute and clear awareness, not a fuzzier one.

The peace that Jesus gives is action. The opposite of peace is panic and paralysis. Inaction. Withdrawal from action. The opposite of peace is being bound and jailed by our troubled hearts and timid fears.

What Jesus gives to the disciples—that is, to us—is Shalom. Shalom is a word and greeting that means peace. But the peace of shalom is not the peace of being withdrawn from the turmoil of the world. It is instead the peace of being right with God, of being in alignment with God’s hopes for the world and us in it. Another word for that alignment is “justice.” The peace that Jesus gives is intimately related to justice. When there is injustice, when the world is messed up according to God’s will, when things are out of alignment—as they so often feel to us these days—then we cannot call it peace.

The world is imperfect. Experience, scripture, and theology all agree on that. People do vicious things to others, and anger and fear and retribution and greed are strong motivators to us human creatures. Evil things can and do occur in the lives of individuals, in relationships, in families, in communities, in nations. Unfortunately, it seems, wherever people gather.

We do have to do something. There is no good word, oddly, for acting in peace. There is no equivalent for the phrase “waging war.” “Waging peace” sounds silly. Partly that is because, though we often think of war and peace as opposites, the end of war is not the same as peace. If injustice continues, even it there is no war, there is no peace. So acting in peace might better be called “working for justice.” And working for justice is hard work.

Peace is not doing nothing. It takes a huge amount of spiritual energy. More, even, than war. It takes courage and bravery and sticking to convictions. It takes confidence in oneself and in one’s buddies. It takes putting fears aside, or more likely living with fear. It takes sometimes-extreme Christ-like generosity. It takes, for Christians, faith in doing what Jesus did and taught. It takes more than what is humanly possible, and therefore takes in the end the willingness to put at least part of the responsibility for things in God’s hands. It takes listening for the Holy Spirit that Jesus tells us is sent in his name. None of this is easy.

The word Peace comes from a word meaning “to join.” When we share the peace here at Faith, we are joining with one another. The rite of sharing the peace just before Communion comes from the notion that we should be reconciled one with the other before we come to share Christ’s meal at the table. If we are all children of God in this world, then peace in the end means reconciliation. Not just not battling one another, but joining together.

I do not give you peace as the world does, Jesus tells his disciples. Do not be perplexed and do not be timid, he tells them. God will send the Holy Spirit, he tells them. The world hardly gives peace at all. But we have signed up as followers of Christ and get the same gifts the disciples were given. Clear thinking, courage, and the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, guide us, and remind us of all that Jesus has said.

The Big Deal

Text: Acts 11:1-18 Other texts: John 13:31-35, Revelation 21:1-6

It seems to be a big deal.

This vision of Peter’s seems to be a big deal, because it appears twice in the book of Acts, once in chapter 10 and once, as we just heard it, in chapter 11. Peter had been hanging around with gentiles, people who were not Jews. He had been hanging around with them and eating with them. The Christian Jews in Jerusalem, sort of the headquarters for the new Jesus movement, were very unhappy. They were unhappy because Peter was doing something that no Jew should do, this eating food with gentiles.

We know how this story turns out in the end. The early Christians did in fact reach out to the pagans. Peter and especially Paul became missionaries to the gentiles. Because of their work, the group who would eventually come to be called Christians grew and spread in areas and in ways it might not have otherwise. Because you know how the story turns out, you might think that the Jerusalem leaders were making a mountain out of a molehill, were being alarmist, or at least were supporting the wrong missionary strategy.

But the problem they had with Peter was a real one. Jesus and his disciples were Jews. They were part of a community of people. As part of that community, they shared certain values, and hopes, and concerns. The particular community of which they were members was surrounded by a group of people—Romans and Greeks and other gentiles—who had different values and hopes and concerns, and who could not care less whether the Jewish community prospered or declined. They were an oppressed people in their own land.

The community that Peter and Paul and Jesus and other Jews shared was a holy community. Holy does not mean religious, or spirit-filled, or especially loved by God. It means separate. When God said “I am your God and you are my people,” God established a separate group of people. The word “gentile” means essentially “everybody else.” “Other people.” “People not us.”

To be separate implies or requires a boundary. On one side of the boundary people do things a particular way. On the other side, they do things a different way. That is one way you know who is in and who is out. One thing you do if you are a person like Peter is to eat particular kinds of food prepared in certain ways. And you do not share meals with people who eat other foods prepared in other ways.

There is nothing magical about the food itself. What matters is that the custom—or the rules, or the law—is important and one of the things that you do and are faithful to. It is like—to be a little trivial here—it is like wearing the right clothes if you are or want to be known as a particular kind of person. You don’t wear khakis and bow ties if you want be known as Goth. If you do, you won’t be Goth for long. And if you could and still be Goth, that would change what it means to be Goth. It would be threatening to Goth holiness, if I can mix those terms. That’s what the people in Jerusalem are worried about.

Peter was wearing the wrong clothes, a little. But more, he was welcoming others who wore the wrong clothes and had no interest in shopping for new ones. How come I can’t be Goth even though I’m wearing khakis?

Peter explains what he is doing by telling the big shots in Jerusalem about his vision. In the vision a large sheet comes down from heaven and it is full of food. What you have to know about this is that the food is not the right food for a Jew like Peter to eat. It is the wrong food. People in Peter’s community would not eat that food.

In fact, Peter would have found the food disgusting. Not just surprised, but grossed out. Things we find disgusting are the internalized rules of our group, our community. Human creatures in the world do all sorts of things. The things that our particular group really does not do we find disgusting, abhorrent, an abomination. Words and feelings like that. Unnatural, people sometimes say. What our emotions or our guts are telling us is: that’s not the way we do things here. People who do things like that don’t belong here. So Peter in his vision says to God: “Yuck! No way am I going to eat that stuff. I never have and I never will.”

What God says to Peter is: It is not up to you, Peter, to say what is clean or unclean. What is holy and what is not. Our reading says “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” But another Bible says “you must not call common.” That is, not-holy, not separated, just like everything else, common.

It is a little unfair, since God made the rules about what is clean and holy in the first place. Peter’s point is that God evidently can adjust the boundaries, and will, and most importantly, has. At least according to Peter’s vision. As a result, Peter visits a house where gentiles live, and he eats with them and eats their food. The Spirit, he says, “told me to go … and not make a distinction between them and us.”

Not make a distinction! Making distinctions is what it is all about. Who is in and who is out. Who has power and who does not. Who deserves favor and who does not. Who, even, is law abiding and who is not. Who gets to decide and who is affected by those decisions. Whom you feel comfortable with and who makes you uncomfortable. What you admire and what disgusts you. Whom you feel safe being around and who makes you cross to the other side of the street.

What Peter notices is that though we make these distinctions, God does not. And that if the Spirit has anything to say about it, we should not either. The people Peter visits have an experience of God that authorizes them to be on the inside. Or rather, that allows them not to be on the outside. It is their own experience, managed by the Spirit, that counts.

If we think we know for sure whom God likes, then first of all we are in danger of denying what God would allow. And second, we are in danger of denying ourselves an experience of God that might help us know God better. Peter turned away in disgust at first when he heard what God wanted. He was being asked to do what was not in the Bible; in fact, what the Bible said not to do. The Spirit can move us toward God in paths that cross boundaries that we protect. And our knowledge of doctrine and feelings of disgust are not reliable guides on those paths.

Jesus leads us to a new Jerusalem, as it says in Revelation. A place here on earth where God dwells among the mortals (that’s us). But being new means it won’t be the same as the old. Who knows how many ways there are to love God? In the psalm for today [Psalm 148] even the sun and the moon praise God, and the fire and fog do God’s will. We are only creatures, not always so smart or wise.

Peter, disciple of Jesus, heard Jesus say, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” Now he hears the Spirit add a clarifying explanation: when I said love one another, I meant love without distinction.

We have claimed Jesus to be our Lord, meaning our boss, our leader. We have said that we hope to allow the Spirit to lead us in ways unknown. Maybe, as with Peter and his friends in Jerusalem, God is trying to tell us something that we do not already know.

It is a big deal.